


Second Chances

by morganoconner



Series: Second Chances [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Curtain Fic, Gen, Kid Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-17
Updated: 2011-08-17
Packaged: 2017-10-22 20:08:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/242049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morganoconner/pseuds/morganoconner
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam finds a way to save Castiel, and maybe even himself. Dean's left to handle the fallout.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Second Chances

Dean watches from a safe distance, just like he promised. Not because he thinks Sam can handle this himself (even though Dean knows he probably can, that would never stop him on any other day), but because getting closer would draw attention to himself, and that would put his little brother in more danger than he's already in.

If that's even possible.

His heart pounds as Sam kneels before the thing that used to be Cas but now calls itself God. Dean is trembling with the desire to dart forward, to stop this insanity before it has a chance to go any further, but Sam was right.

This is the only chance they have.

Castiel places a hand on Sam's head, grips his hair just tightly enough to force Sam to look up at him. The cold blankness in Castiel's eyes makes Dean want to scream, but whatever Castiel sees in Sam's gaze must please him, because a smile twitches at the corners of his mouth, and he nods.

Sam shifts his weight, but he doesn't try to stand. Castiel holds his other hand out, and Sam takes it between his own. Grips tightly and presses their palms together. To Dean's eyes, it's like it happens in slow motion.

 _Sammy_ , Dean thinks desperately, stumbling a step forward in spite of himself, but it's too late to matter now.

There's perfect stillness for a fraction of a heartbeat, and then Castiel – or the multitude of souls inside him, it's hard to tell which – begins to scream.

~*~

All told, it only lasts a few seconds, but they're the longest few seconds of Dean's life. After the screaming started, he had to turn away, because the light building around Castiel was too bright to stand.

If Sam ever made a sound, Dean couldn't hear it over the souls.

He waits, hating himself the entire time, until there's no more screaming, no more light seeping through his closed eyelids, and then he tentatively looks up.

The first thing Dean notices is that the floor around Castiel and Sam is completely blackened, which he can only assume means that's which way the souls went when they were forcefully pushed from Castiel's body and back into Purgatory.

The second thing he notices is that Sam is moving, and then he doesn't care about anything else as he runs, skidding the last few feet and falling to his knees to scoop his little brother into his arms and hold onto him so tightly that Sam might not actually be able to breathe.

"Sammy, Jesus fucking Christ," he murmurs into his hair. "Scared the shit outta me, damn it, I thought you were a goner."

Sam clings back for a long time, and then pulls away, dewey eyes fixing on Dean's face even as a smile breaks out and shines up at him like sunshine.

"M'okay, Dean," Sam says, and Jesus, he sounds so _young_. "We did it!"

"Yeah, Sammy. We did."

He pulls Sam – all thirty-five pounds of the kid – back to him and just holds on some more. He has no fucking clue what to do here, can't even begin to process everything, all he knows is that his little brother is alive and safe and –

Well. Alive and safe are what count, anyway.

"Cas is gonna be okay too, Dean," Sam murmurs into his shoulder. Frankly, Dean couldn't care less, given everything that's happened, but even as he thinks it, the little bundle beneath the trench coat is moving. A second later, a small face pops out, a face framed with dark locks of shaggy hair and set with unsettling, too wide, too blue eyes that blink at Dean nervously.

The hunter is lost.

Sam cuddles deeper into his hold, and tentatively, Cas crawls out from beneath the fabric of his coat and makes his way over to them with wobbly steps.

What can Dean do, other than hold a hand out and let the angel find comfort in the safety of his arms?

~*~

"You did _what?_ " Bobby bellows.

Dean cringes, glad that Sam and Castiel are already upstairs. Hopefully they'll sleep right through the fighting, because God knows they both need it.

"We didn't have a lot of options, Bobby. This is the first – the _only_ – reference we found to anything that could actually get the souls out." Dean's fingers tap an erratic beat on the tabletop, a nervous habit he can't even remember developing. "Sam figured out how it works, I couldn't explain it if you paid me. Something about Cas' age being linked with the amount of power available for the souls to feed off of. Man, I didn't even know angels had anything like ages before Sam dug this up."

"They don't, or they shouldn't," Bobby snorts. "Not unless they're bound to their vessel, and you're damn lucky that angel was."

Dean grunted. "Sam did some spellwork on the relic before he used it. Wouldn't surprise me if that was part of it. Kid always was too smart for his own good."

"But why on earth –"

"Relic couldn't be used on one person unless another was holding it." Dean stares hard at the scarred wood beneath his fingers, his jaw clenched. "It was his choice, Bobby. He begged me to let him do this." Slowly, he raises his gaze to Bobby's. "Can you really blame him? Knowing what he's been goin' through?"

The nightmares. The panic attacks. The violent way a memory would overtake him at the worst possible moments. When the wall broke, Sam didn't break with it, but it was a close thing, and it's been getting closer every day.

Bobby shakes his head. "But he still remembers –"

"It's different now," Dean cuts in. "It's…fuzzy, or something. He knows me, he knows what happened. Hell, he knows everything, but. It's like it happened to someone else, and he's only remembering second-hand. He's _happy_ , Bobby. And Cas…"

"Yeah," Bobby says, because he'd seen how the quiet little angel had clung to Sam's hand, just like Dean's seen the way they curl around each other when they sleep.

It makes him think of the friendship he saw developing way before any of this happened. Before Lucifer, before the pit, before souls and civil wars and demon deals and gods. It makes him remember that once upon a time, Sam and Cas had a bond of their own.

It makes him think about forgiveness, and about second chances, and about finding redemption.

~*~

He sneaks upstairs as quietly as he can, but he doesn't really need to worry. Sam and Cas are both out like lights, wrapped around each other like a couple of miniature octopuses (Octopi? Hell, Sam would probably know, the nerd.). Every once in a while, Cas will let out a tiny whimper that breaks Dean's heart, and even in his sleep, Sam will reach out and smooth a hand over his hair, whisper that he's okay, he's safe here.

Less than a week ago, those actions and those words were Dean's, and it was Sam clinging to the comfort like a drowning man clinging to a life raft.

Dean lays down on the sleeping bag beside the bed and falls asleep to the deep, even breathing of his brother and their angel.

He sleeps easier than he has in years.

~*~

Dean's way of picking a place to live is to basically close his eyes and point to a spot on the map, which is how they end up in a tiny bumfuck town in Ohio by the time summer is just starting to give way to fall.

Bobby takes care of the details, because Bobby is awesome, and before he can blink, Dean has a mortgage, a steady stream of bills, and papers that list him as the sole legal guardian of two five year old boys.

It's a little daunting.

The house has three bedrooms, and he tries to give the boys each one of their own, but they'll have none of it, and eventually he gives in and turns the smaller one into an office-slash-junk-storage room.

Sam and Cas continue to happily snuggle each other to sleep every night, and Dean continues to feel his heart ache at the sight, even as it never fails to put a smile on his face.

He lays sigils and protections out in salt, and in blood, and in iron. Blends it into the walls and under the floorboards and anywhere else he can think of where it won't be noticed but will still be viable.

Castiel doesn't talk much, except to Sam, but he helps. He draws angelic protections out on scraps of paper for Dean, and lets Sam explain what they mean so that Dean can decide where to put them in the house.

As he works on the house, he watches Sam and Castiel. It's hard to find one without the other. Even when they argue, which is rare, one will usually seek the other out after a few short hours, tearful, heartfelt apologies on their tongues. Sometimes, Dean will hear them talking about Before – and he can _hear_ the capital letter when they bring it up – and he'll stop and listen intently as they talk about the things they saw and did and were. There's a lot of shit to work through, but with the memories muted the way they are, it seems to be easier for them to get to the heart of a matter and work through it.

Sometimes, Castiel will look up after these conversations, and he'll smile a shy, tiny smile at Dean, and Dean will smile back and nod, and there'll be no conversation necessary to know that they're okay, too. Sam always looks proud of them both when this happens, and Dean wishes that didn't tug on his heartstrings the way it does.

~*~

One day, just a couple months after they move in, Dean takes Sam and Cas to the park. Castiel holds Sam's hand tightly as he drags him over to the swingset – _It feels like flying, Sammy!_ – and Dean takes a seat on the bench with a feeling dangerously close to contentment.

He barely even notices the woman who sits next to him until she speaks. "Your children are adorable," she tells him, smiling over at them.

Dean grins as he watches Sam push Cas so that he can go even higher. It occurs to him that this is his life, for better or for worse, and that overall, he's pretty content with his lot in it.

Sam and Castiel are both happy, and safe. Really, that's all Dean ever needed to feel the same way.

He turns to her. "They're my brothers, actually," he says, and in that moment, it's absolutely the truest thing he's ever said.

Because, yeah.

They're all family now.


End file.
